Tag: nudge theory

As a psychologist I know only too well how people are driven by a complex interwoven set of drives, preferences and biases. And anyone who has tried to manage people knows how resistant to change human beings are. The leader is driven to improve, change and create and finds it frustrating when others are not driven in the same way. Some even go so far as to say it’s impossible to change other people – you can only change yourself (and that’s hard enough!). It is definitely true that changing someone’s behaviour fundamentally is not going to happen as the result of one initiative, project or intervention. But it happens best when it is done incrementally. And this is perfectly in tune with the underlying psychological research.

So what is Nudge all about? At the heart of it is one of the most well understood notions in psychology – reinforcement. This is where behaviour is monitored in some way and the ‘correct’ behaviour reinforced through reward. The other side of the coin would be to ‘punish’ the wrong behaviour although this is far less effective than positive reinforcement. This might sound underhand or even immoral but the technique is well understood and can be used in every workplace imaginable.

What is reward?

the main thing is that reward is not necessarily financial. Everyone needs to be appreciated and we all need to be certain that we are doing the right thing. I worked for a boss who was really very nice to me and always positive. but I was never quite sure I was doing the right thing. Was I focussed on the right projects? Was my style right? Was I doing enough? When I had my annual review, he said in so many words that I was doing very well and then was specific about what he liked about what I was doing and why. This was amazingly useful and I left that meeting on a high. But it would of course been so much better if he’d managed to do this earlier! I see my role now is to reinforce when he gives me this sort of feedback. Here’s a form of words:

” Thanks for that Dave. It is sometimes hard to know in the daily pressures of work whether we are putting out efforts in the right place so I really appreciate your telling me this so I know I am on the right track.”

Another example could be when I might not be focussed on the right thing and he tells me this. So I might respond:

“Dave, this is of course a bit difficult to hear because I am clearly not quite focussed on the right things. But it is so useful to have this feedback so I know what I need to change. I will work on this and perhaps I can check back with you to make sure it is now going the way you want it?”